


Keen

by Sangerin



Series: Zoe Reynolds, A to Z [11]
Category: Spooks | MI-5
Genre: Alphabet Soup Challenge, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-17
Updated: 2007-04-17
Packaged: 2017-10-18 05:53:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/185702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sangerin/pseuds/Sangerin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pain becomes her personal reminder that she is still alive.</p><p>WARNING: implied self-harm</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keen

**Author's Note:**

> Definitions of "keen" - 1) finely sharpened, as an edge; 2) sharp, piercing or biting; 3) intense, as feeling or desire; 4) to wail in lamentation for the dead.
> 
> K is for knife

Helen is dead, Mariella is dead, Tessa is gone from her life in more ways than one. The numbness is so overwhelming that Zoe digs her fingernails into her arms until the nails leave impressions, just to prove that she can still feel. Pain – short, sharp pain – becomes her personal reminder that she is still alive, still here, still herself. And when that no longer works, and there’s no Tom to keep her sane, she turns to Fiona.

Fiona needs her own escape route, her own reminder that life is more than picking up after Adam and Wesley.

They escape into each other. They never talk much, or socialise. It’s the physical contact they care about: And when Zoe tells Fiona not to care if she breaks Zoe’s skin, when she cries at Fiona and begs for more, harder, more – Fiona responds with some of the aggression that builds within her each time Adam tells her she’s better off at home with Wesley.

When Fiona draws blood, Zoe doesn’t care. When Zoe responds, almost mechanically, to Fiona, she doesn’t care, either. This isn’t about love, or emotion. It’s about touch, physicality, pain. It reminds them both they are alive, that beneath the skin nerve endings still fire and tingle. The escape is momentary, but repeated at intervals, and perhaps it will be enough to get them both through.


End file.
